Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn

[Bitchysideisouttoplay]

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9071763/Director-TV-drama-Anne-Boleyn-says-best-person-role.html#article-9071763
Not and AIBU really but what does everyone think if this?
Personally I think if you are making a historical drama/film etc surely you should cast a person as close in looks to the historical figure.
Before anyone says I'm.being racist I'm not I had massive issues with the casting in the Tudors due to Johnathan Rhys Meyers being cast as Henry, he is short, not ginger and really does not look anything like Henry in portraits 🙄🙄

@DecemberDiana

I was shocked when Dan Snow said he'd told his young daughter that there were women combat fighters in WW2.

Very bizarre, wrong even to my mindset but part of a new way of thinking perhaps?

But there were?

Russian snipers, for a start.

It was specific to Spitfire fighters.

I've just seen Aircraft got missed off my post about Snow.

I'm forever telling my kids about the crap bits of history. Hope I've not inhibited them.

@titbumwillypoo

Wolf Hall the fictionalised biography ? Wasn't Anne Boleyn born in Norfolk, so how could somebody born in Stockport who doesn't look like her portray her so well? Must have been that she was the best actress to audition. I rest my case M'Lud.

Disingenous or what!

All this wide eyed 'well we don't actually know what Anne Boleyn looked like anyway'. We know she didn't look like Jodie Turner-Smith! Because if she did that would have had repercussions throughout all of Tudor society and beyond.

Like I said, either make a black Anne Boleyn integral to the plot (which they might have done, we don't know?) or suspend belief altogether by doing away with the Tudor costumes and the sets and everything else.

I think it’s a lazy way of doing the same stories over and over.

Where are the commissioned piece by writers from different backgrounds and cultures. Where are the world history adaptations?

Just recasting a white role as ‘colour blind’ denies lots of other equally important parts of history. I’d like to see something on the crusades or the Ottoman Empire or something that isn’t the sodding Tudors and the world war.

@IcedPurple

We absolutely do know what Tudor pronunciation was like. They spoke in OP- original pronunciation. It sounds very West Country. The writer Ben Johnson produced a pronunciation guide for foreigners at the time and specifies particulars of pronunciation.

@DecemberDiana

It was specific to Spitfire fighters.

You mean the female ATA Spitfire pilots?

[quote BelleSausage]@IcedPurple

We absolutely do know what Tudor pronunciation was like. They spoke in OP- original pronunciation. It sounds very West Country. The writer Ben Johnson produced a pronunciation guide for foreigners at the time and specifies particulars of pronunciation.[/quote]
There are various theories of how Tudors might have sounded - the one you mention is just one of them. So no, we don't 'absolutely know' how they sounded. Not to mention that Ben Jonson's career started half a century after Boleyn died.

In any case, modern dramas set in the Tudor period - no matter how much they claim historical accuracy - use modern pronunciation, as otherwise it would be incomprehensible to viewers.

It's interesting a previous poster suggested it was cultural appropriation. I totally agree. I'm proud of my heritage and studied history for a long time. The Tudors are part of the cultural history of my people and it makes me feel very uncomfortable when that is appropriated by a black person. Jodie is no doubt a very fine actor. Is she the best actor for this part? No, and I find her casting offensive, in the same way as I assume Pakistani people would find it offensive if Jackie Chan were cast as Imran Khan, as I suggested earlier. Or am I not allowed a cultural past because I am white?

Oh DID they fly combat missions? Dan's story was they didn't but I now to your superior knowledge.

Do not know what he was angsting about then.

Bow not now. Fat fingers

Hey my opinion is Hollywood cast loads of white people as Egyptian! So I guess it’s ok!

@CarHire101

Hey my opinion is Hollywood cast loads of white people as Egyptian! So I guess it’s ok!

I remember this complaint with Night in the museum. With the pharaoh. Played by Rami Malek🙈 Though in many others it is correct

@Gardeniaofdelights

When Harrison Ford is cast to play Nelson Mandela would your answer be the same? Aother example of the hypocrisy that certain topics provoke.

I hope they cast Reese Witherspoon as Rosa Parks one day, or Leonardo DiCaprio as Muhammad Ali. I mean why not? It's about who is best for the role, and shouldn't about skin colour right?

Instead of making comments like this, could people perhaps try not being so bloody stupid instead?

You can’t cast a white person to play Rosa Parks or Nelson Mandela because those people’s stories are inextricably bound up with their race. The fact that they were black is absolutely integral to the things they achieved and the reasons we know and care about them. The same is not true of Anne Boleyn. Her story has nothing to do with her race.

You might actually ask yourselves why it is that we only seem to tell the stories of black people who have overcome huge adversity as a result of their race, and why that’s different to most white people. Or at least, you might if you’re not an ignorant cretin with less understanding of history than the average seven year old. There is a reason why a vast amount of black history relates to the struggle to overcome oppression, and unless you’re an arsehole you can presumably see why it’s not appropriate for white people to play black roles under those circumstances.

HaHaHa, a response straight out of the WokyWokey annual!!!

@hansgrueber

Why?

For those wanting a change from endless Tudor stuff, try The Last Kingdom!

The Tudor period is not my favourite historical era, but the latter half of the 9th century to the early 10th is, and this is when TLK is set.

It is truly brilliant and follows Uhtred trying to win back his ancestral home of Bebbanburg (Bamburgh) while also serving as King Alfred's Oathman .

It is by far the best programme that has ever been shown on television.

We love the Last Kingdom here.

Re woman combat fighters---surely what you do is give some (truthful) examples of actual women combat fighters (Russia etc., as mentioned above) but also talk realistically about how these were rare and most soldiers in combat are and were men, and that it was much rarer decades than ago than it was now.

Because a) don't lie to kids and b) it's important that girls know how much harder things were for women in the past---how else can they understand how and why feminism came about in the first place?

@Elfinghecking

‘When Harrison Ford is cast to play Nelson Mandela would your answer be the same?’

Give that the story of
Nelson Mandela is based around race and racial discrimination that would be nonsensical. So no, it wouldn’t. But to me casting a black actor for this role is no different to a female Hamlet.

I don't think female hamlets, or other sex reversal casting, usually works well.

There are exceptions - historical productions, the rare case the person actually passes as the other sex, or when the reversal is meant to bring out some perspective the production wants to explore - sometimes these can be effective.

But most of the time the viewer is well aware that the person is not the same sex as the character, that it doesn't make sense in the story, and it becomes a distraction.

Often I think it's done because it's enjoyable for the actors, or they are trying to be edgy, or make a point about sex being irrelevant. The later doesn't work though since usually the change makes it so obvious that it was relevent

Good for her getting the role, I'm sure we can all take a moment to use our imaginations and pretend she's white if it's really truly bothering us

@CarHire101

Hey my opinion is Hollywood cast loads of white people as Egyptian! So I guess it’s ok!

And no one ever gives a shit when this happens but as soon as a black girl gets cast Merry hell breaks loose

I think there's a lot that doesn't feel right about this actress playing AB, apart from her race not being historically accurate, I don't know much about her but she is seems too old and too tall/athletic in build to be what you'd imagine AB to be.

At the end of the day Henry VIII desired AB so much he was willing to reject catholicism and reform the church in England, and at the time a tall, muscular woman would not be seen as desirable. I'm not saying that this actress isn't attractive, she is, but I'm not getting the sexiness that you did from, say Natalie Portman or Natalie Dormer. I would be more convinced by a younger, more petite actress playing AB, regardless of race.

I'm sure she's a great actress but I think the criticism levied at, say Angelina Jolie when she played Mariane Pearl rather than a mixed race actress is the same here.

I don't know or care. If she does a good job representing her that is all that matters.

White people have played other races for years and I don't care about that either. It is acting, the whole point is pretending to be someone you aren't.

Isn't this where the trouble comes from though? This is now completely ideologically fraught.

I actually am ok with people acting. I am happy for people to change their hair colour, their accent, and as far as I am concerned they can change their skin colour. I am ok with Forest Whitaker using make up to change his skin colour, wearing a bald wig, and changing his accent to play Winston Churchill. (At least I am ok with him trying, whether he pulls it off would be a different story.)

I am also ok with white actors playing different races. I think the question of making sure non-white actors get roles is a different question that should be addressed separately, but ultimately I think it is good for actors if they can attempt any role they can play convincingly. To say this denigrates people in the sae way that racist depictions does is perfidious IMO.

I am also ok with race-blind casting, but I don't really enjoy it in naturalistic historical productions. And I think it can be used as a crutch in some instances which is not artistically great. But something like Troy - yes, that element worked for me, even if the rest was a dog's breakfast. And some people don't mind in historical dramas which is fine too - we don't all like the same things.

But - the current wisdom is against this. It says race is important, so important that we can't attempt this kind of cross race portrayal, it's offensive. People who disagree are told in no uncertain terms that they are wrong.

If people really believe that, then no wonder many aren't happy with race-blind casting in historical roles - it's fundamentally doing the same thing, saying that race isn't important in that sort of artistic depiction, it's all about the acting.

People get pissed off because it's clearly not artistic, it's political, and the principle applied depends on what people would like, not any kind of logical consistency.,